Amazon Confirms It Will Buy Sizmek, Shoring Up Ad Capabilities

(Bloomberg) -- Amazon.com Inc. is acquiring the core ad-serving technology of bankrupt Sizmek Inc., giving it another weapon to chip away at Google’s dominance in the online ad business.

The deal gives Amazon technology that can help advertisers place spots around the internet and measure their effectiveness, similar to Google’s Marketing Platform, formerly known as DoubleClick. Before it got into financial trouble, Sizmek was seen as a key ad tech player balancing Google’s power in the advertising world. Bloomberg reported the two companies were close to a deal earlier in May.

“Sizmek and Amazon Advertising have many mutual customers, so we know how valued these proven solutions are to their customer base,” Amazon said in a blog post. A spokeswoman for Sizmek declined to provide the purchase price of the assets. In a court filing, Sizmek has previously estimated it’s worth between $100 million and $500 million.

Amazon is rising as the only real challenger to the control Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Facebook Inc. have over the online advertising market. It has reams of data on millions of consumers around the world and is increasingly becoming the first place people go when looking to buy things online.

To contact the reporter on this story: Gerrit De Vynck in New York at gdevynck@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jillian Ward at jward56@bloomberg.net, Molly Schuetz, Mark Schoifet

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.